Questions and Answers

Hello!

Following the merger, I see that the SPG amex card is still available. I was looking at the SPG site and it looks like it has a transfer ratio of 3:1 to airline partners (the most valuable type of redemption for me). This doesn’t seem to be a good value, but am I missing something?

Also, is it possible to transfer points to Marriott from CSR, and then transfer Marriott points to SPG to book with the airline partners? That also doesn’t seem to be efficient because it would still require a 3:1 transfer ratio.

Thank You!

You can combine your Marriott and SPG points into a single account. Your SPG points transfer at the rate of 1:3. So, if before combining you had
1000 Marriott and
1000 SPG
after combining you’d have 4000 Marriott. Then, as you note, you can transfer Marriott points to airlines at the 3:1 rate. Since they’ve decided that 1 SPG = 3 Marriott, the transfer rate is essentially the same. You also still get the transfer bonus. Before it was 5K miles when you transferred 20K points so you end up with 25K airline miles. Now when you transfer 60K points you get the 5K miles bonus and still end up with 25K airline miles.